Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

Hello there, I live in Berlin now and used to live in the United States. My family is there, and I go back to the east coast of the US often. The degenerating and dystopian quality of the United States is difficult to overstate, but almost impossible to capture verbally.<p>Whatever one cause attributes to the systematic breakdown of the US, it is difficult to deny the realities of the decline -- massive alcohol and narcotic dependency issues, increase polarization of politics, censoriousness on all sides of the discussion, narrowness, a shortening of attention, a loss of standards. I could go on, but it&#x27;s too depressing.<p>I came to Berlin first in 2006. Yes, it was very cheap then, but also very monocultural: now there are many more forms of life here, and they benefit from their coexistence. Stay here, make this moderately good place even better.

I freelance and love it. The hard part for you will be getting your foot in the door. I’m about your age, and so far haven’t had any problems with employers in our industry. The rise of remote work probably helps you a bit with the employment side of your question.<p>As for the negative comments, what the comments here don’t address is this: the US is almost more like a bunch of countries rather than one single entity. Which of the states you choose- and which city— makes a huge difference as to your experience. There are absolute hell holes (Flint, Michigan comes to mind) and surprisingly pleasant places (my town of Greenville, SC which was run by an Austrian mayor for so long that it has a fairly European feel to it).<p>On average, the food here is worse. The bread is much worse. The coffee is terrible. But you can find great bread, coffee, etc if you go out of your way to do so (I do). And in NJ and NY metro areas, you’ll have plenty of good options.<p>The healthcare system is dumb and annoying, but fine (where I am) as long as you have insurance (which you should have through your wife). The fact that your healthcare is tied to your employer is so, so dumb. If you freelance and get a visa, maybe you can buy your own. That’s what I do, and it’s my preference.<p>Politically, we are really more divided than I can remember in my lifetime. But it doesn’t affect me at all in my day to day life. I suspect the next two years will be pretty rough if you care about politics. Personally, I just tune it out. I vote. But other than that, I focus on my family, job, local community, and hobbies, and I’m quite happy here.<p>Edit: one more thing: my wife and I are considering moving to France. I work remotely, so this is simpler for us than for many. Our plan is to start by testing the waters with a long term (3 months or so) rental. If you can do something similar, do it!

I&#x27;m an American (Texan) who has been living in Germany for the past 6 years. I would suggest to consider the culture and lifestyle more than the work, as those will play a much larger role in your happiness and satisfaction. It sounds cliché, but money doesn&#x27;t necessarily buy happiness.<p>I enjoy living in German&#x2F;European cities significantly more than I did living in big cities in Texas (I can&#x27;t speak for the East Coast). I value the culture of being able to walk or bike pretty much anywhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time. I value feeling safe even in the &quot;bad&quot; neighborhoods here in Germany. I&#x27;ve never once come across a situation where I was worried about my safety here, I can&#x27;t say the same for the US. I value a society that isn&#x27;t so extreme (wealth inequality, political ideology, etc.).<p>As for what I miss about the US, it&#x27;s mostly the food (TexMex, BBQ) and nature (so much more to see and do, but you need a car). There&#x27;s also the work culture which is a bit different, particularly in terms of startups and innovation; Germany definitely lags behind in this aspect. Some things are more convenient in the US as well, such as stores being open later and on Sundays.<p>Germany isn&#x27;t perfect, but I think it&#x27;s better than the US in a lot of quality of life aspects.<p>Before moving, I would recommend going to visit the city and see if it&#x27;s something that might fit you. Try to talk to locals and explain your situation, I&#x27;m sure there would be people happy to show you around and give you some good insights from a less touristy perspective.<p>Of course, all of this is hard to weigh if your wife will be living there for certain, as long-distance relationships can be tough.

Do not go. Here&#x27;s why:<p>1) You have no network in the US. You will have to start from scratch. Remember how you started. Multiply difficulty level by 2. And you&#x27;re not going to be any younger.<p>2) Salaries for perm positions being &quot;significantly lower&quot; in the US than in EU. This nullifies gains from moving to the US. Add cost of moving everything over long range by plane&#x2F;cargo ship.<p>3) Healthcare cost. My friend asked me once about cost of dental care in Ireland (where I live now). I replied &#x27;it depends, between 30-60 euro&#x27;. He was quoted 13000 dollars for one tooth job. Think about this double hard, you&#x27;re 50 and you won&#x27;t get any younger.<p>4) Friends and your peers will stay in the EU. You won&#x27;t see any of them for months and years. Factor in plane ticket prices. You won&#x27;t be coming home to visit family for Christmas.<p>Just few things from top of my head, but I think they are important.

Lots of anti American comments in this thread, so I’ll attempt to actually answer your question. Background - I’m an American who moved abroad for 12 years (UK) and returned after Brexit.<p>Salaries are much higher than the EU. But in some cities cost of living is high. Coming from Berlin, you’ll have an easier time finding an apartment, but it will be expensive. I’d expect to pay $2000 to $2500 per month for a decent apartment in Princeton. Also, you will require a car. Public transport here is not feasible for the most part. A decent car will be $250 per month base, plus $100 to $200 insurance per month, plus fuel. Food is cheap and plentiful. The portion sizes are twice as large for the same equivalent price as the EU :). Make sure you get healthcare coverage through your wife’s job - this shouldn’t be a problem. If you are both in good health you should be fine. If you have preexisting medical conditions then it will likely be much more expensive for you here than in the EU.

There are many contract opportunities in the US, often paying more than in Europe, sometimes a LOT more. You didn&#x27;t provide details about what you do and how much you make, so it&#x27;s hard to be sure in your particular case. You will be close to NYC, which also opens many opportunities. You could use some job search engine like Indeed to look around a little in your area of expertise.<p>This said, the visa issue could be a major hurdle and it&#x27;s important to do your homework about this work visa that will be given to you.<p>Regarding the negativity about living in the USA... I immigrated to this country 20 years ago and I love it. I would never trade the US for Europe, despite Europe being an interesting place. It&#x27;s not fun being poor in the US, like in most of the world, but I think overall it&#x27;s an amazing country with lots of opportunities, great quality of life and wonderful people.

You have not provided enough context for anyone to give you useful advice. We would need to know your hourly or daily rate and to basically see your resume to have any chance of giving a rate range. There is also the issue of taxes which make comparisons less straightforward.<p>That said, I think you can generally expect IT pay to be higher in US major cities than almost anywhere in the EU. The US also has the concept of consulting. That runs the range, you could be working for a body shop agency for no more pay than a salary where the agency takes up to 50% of the client’s rate. You could also be an independent consultant where you run your own company and directly market and contract with your clients for 2 or 3 times the pay. The latter takes a personal network and a reputation. If your current clients pay you well, why not just properly structure things and work for them from the US?<p>Besides pay, there is the issue of cost of living. You could have the option to live in a fairly rural area and commute into Princeton. Cost of living can be fairly low in the US outside major cities or some of the highest in the world within them. It is a big country with much variance.<p>One last thing: you will find that the US is basically still the barbarian lands in comparison to Europe, history has a long arm. That can be good or bad depending on you, but don’t be shocked when you find out that the country is bordering on anarchy in comparison to Germany, expect it.

Can you make a test move for just a few months and see if you like it?<p>Employment aside, there are other things that matters when you change countries &#x2F; continents. As an European, I wouldn&#x27;t like to move permanently to the US.<p>If you are making enough money in Europe, I don&#x27;t see much incentives to move to US.

Concrete data point: My neighbor (a German) moved to the East Coast a year ago (for wife’s job) and has zero intention of moving back (they have bought a house).<p>Obviously lots of details; they are in academia, have an 8yo, were most recently in the UK, etc. But they have their skin in the game and made choose USA.

I don’t think people realise quite how good we have it in Europe. I would not leave Europe to live in America for any amount of money.

Note: sorry, my english is not my native language<p>My only advice(s) as someone in mid &#x27;40s are: 1. Don&#x27;t jump to such a sudden and radical change, many-many things in US are vastly different that what are you accustom (strong point since you&#x27;re from Germany) 2. Give it a try since you&#x27;re mostly working as freelancer, spend 1-2mo (tourist visa) so you will not break up from your wife 3. See how&#x27;s living there, if you can accommodate 4. Let us know (start ablog) :)

Moving to the US at this point would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic just after it hit the iceberg.<p>But sure, why not?

If you have medical issues for anyone in your family, think a million times before moving to the United States. Unless you have very good health insurance, you’re fucked, financially.<p>Other things like infrastructure, political polarization etc are very real. But there are also lots of opportunities in tech, salaries are higher than Europe but the work culture is worse - expect to work longer hours than Europe, little paid leave, fire at will etc. These are personal choices and compromises.<p>If things don’t work out, can you easily move back to Berlin? If yes, maybe it is worth taking a chance and spend a couple of years here and see how it goes?

Let me give you a less doom and gloom outlook than I’m seeing here :) I’m a native born American who has spent a few years living in a developing country. USA can be a great place to call home. I can’t explain how much I missed the friendliness of people here when living abroad. Not hearing “how are you” and not seeing smiles for years made my heart cold. It’s just so lovely how easy it is to talk to strangers here.<p>If you’re able to move over, I’d sincerely recommend hitting the road and seeing everything usa has to offer on a series of road trips. You and your wife will love it!

I would closely research the health care situation. When you&#x27;re young, white, male and invincible the US may well be a good choice, but later in life when a bad health care bill is typically just around the corner you will want to be very careful about such decisions.<p>In Germany not a whole lot can happen, in the United States you may well be on the receiving end of the stick.<p>And that&#x27;s before we get into the speed with which the whole of the world as we knew it seems to be unraveling, including the USA, but I can see some arguments for being safer there than in Berlin.

Interesting to hear peoples perception of America on here. A lot seems to be based off a short visit or reading online comments of disgruntled Americans. Additionally, some of the issues outlined, such as the gym membership issue, I have never experienced in my entire life nor know anyone who has had that issue.<p>If you have visited you probably went to one of 3-4 cities or a tourist attraction, neither is really indicative of how most Americans live.

zoom has let agile east coast firms work with international contractors which i expect to compress US freelance rates and inflate international rates towards the US mean. the only markets you gain access to by moving to Princeton is NYC and west coast timezones as remote worker. my main question is how you will source contracts which is the determinant of if you are competing with local or remote talent. My NYC contracts, as a freelancer living in Philadelphia, all came from NYC software meetups combined with a strong online presence in the relevant community. Cities in the US are not nearly as closely located as Europe where there are 10 cities within 3 hrs commute of any point so if you’re going to get contracts from IRL networking you have to focus on one city. if you don’t plan to benefit from NYC proximity i don’t know if you will gain advantage living here. Also you may experience ageism in NYC market as it is extremely competitive.

I&#x27;m an European IT professional who lives on the East Coast for more than a decade. You for sure can find 6-12 months gigs, but my experience is that it will take time to find the good ones, that pay well and don&#x27;t treat their contractors as second class citizens. You need to build a network and that may take years. Also ageism in IT industry exists. For people over 50 the expectation is one to be in the management or maybe in very niche industry that has high demand for IT professionals. I think your quality of life will go south in NJ. You should look into this from many angles and payment is only one of them.

Making your wife happy will certainly makes you happy. So if your wife is super excited about this, just follow her for the best or worse. Youll be together so youll be fine.<p>Id tell her that you will follow her wherever she goes. Its cliche I know but wouldnt you want to hear the same?

A couple of comments as a European who lives and works in the US:<p>- I&#x27;m surprised that you find salaries lower in the US than in Europe. That said, if you compared freelance&#x2F;consulting rates to salaries, that&#x27;s Apples and Oranges. If you compare salaried positions, even on the East Coast, the salaries should be noticeably higher than in Germany. The extremely high compensation that people in some posts are talking about are generally found in a few, extremely high cost of living areas on the West Coast.<p>- I would expect AWS focused cloud migration consulting to be in demand in the US more or less the same way it is in Europe. That said, you&#x27;ll be in competition with the usual consulting&#x2F;outsourcing suspects and with no network, that might be a bit of an issue.<p>- The big financial hit for freelancers over here tends to be health insurance, and that&#x27;s going to be rather expensive at your age (I&#x27;m a few years older than you). If your wife&#x27;s job does offer health insurance for both of you, that&#x27;s a major bonus. In fact that&#x27;s pretty much what keeps me from freelancing with 30+ years experience (I used to freelance in Europe).<p>- Yes, there are differences in the quality of life over here. Not all of it is applicable to freelancers for whom paid vacation time isn&#x27;t a thing, but it&#x27;s a different mentality when it comes to work here for a lot of people.<p>To put not too fine a point to it, yes, your age can be an issue. Despite age discrimination being illegal, it&#x27;s still rampant in this industry. OTOH I don&#x27;t have that many problems finding work, and I work with a few people who are older than me and also don&#x27;t have those issues. A lot of it depends on the company you&#x27;re working for or with - some of them are looking for cheap young cannon fodder, others are willing to pay for experience and deal with grumpy old people :).<p>The other question you need to answer for yourself is the motivation for moving over here, even temporarily. If you&#x27;re looking to make untold riches quickly, it&#x27;s probably not that great an idea. While you should be able to at least match your German income over here, it might take a few years to get back to that level.

I moved also with 50 for 3 years, and it made sense to me then. Of course I&#x27;m happily back.<p>NY pays good, the rest in the East not so, comparable to Germany. Living in third world countries is always interesting.<p>free-lancing is easy, but also easy to find (and loose) a job. you&#x27;d might get a H1-B, which means you would be tied to a company. Or a O1, then you are free to choose. everybody can get a O1 there, you just need some references of excellence. eg for dancing in strip clubs, or doing DJ&#x27;ing.

You already have a work permit?

Are you permanently moving, or is it likely to be temporary (a few years at most)?<p>I suppose not too much can go wrong. I have a feeling quality of life might be <i>slightly</i> lower, compared to what I&#x27;m told about Berlin. If you don&#x27;t like it you can move back.<p>Despite what you hear on the news about the internal issues there, my opinion (based on spending a few years there) is that America is a cool place.

Realistically, you will need to earn NYC wages to afford living in NJ, but employers in and around Princeton expect to pay workers half of those wages. It&#x27;s also a culturally devoid area and highly car dependent. You&#x27;d have a better bet freelancing in either Philadelphia or New York.

Note that there are 2-3 posters in this thread spamming it with their opinions to push a certain narrative.

Two neighbors, ex-USA Citizens have give up the Citizenship to cut their tie with the IRS... They often say &quot;America is here&quot; (France).<p>IME if you plan a <i>short</i> migration for a project, witch means go, earn enough money, come back and you do not need ANY KIND of health services in the foreseeable meantime it&#x27;s ok. If not...<p>USA level of services is third world compared to EU, bureaucracy is byzantine, surely you might earn <i>much</i> more in absolute terms, just to spend much more in countless fees, you get, perhaps depending from a place to another, very nice nature, nice colleagues, parties, spaces, ... It&#x27;s an experience, but definitively not a country I&#x27;ll ever choose or recommend compared to EU. Financially is a nonsense if not for a limited period of time, being healthy, etc.<p>My suggestion is NOT just asking about salaries but also about cost of living, about all the bureaucracy you need, about how to find a lawyer (because yes, you need one, even just to subscribe to a local gym) etc.

Personal context: I am American, have lived in 9 countries on 5 continents &amp; currently live in Europe, and am the same age as the OP.<p>Immersing oneself within another culture is almost always worth it, but like anything valuable there are always challenges. Psychologically, the Gartner hype cycle will apply to you and your family (replace “innovation trigger” with “new culture trigger”). Given your visa situation is unknown, what’s your backup plan if you can’t work? (e.g., go back to university, learn a new language, etc.) I can’t stress enough to have a plan here. Having one partner being productive in a new culture while the other is mired in the “trough of disillusionment” for a long time is a recipe for immense family&#x2F;financial strife.<p>A good starting point for financial questions you might ask yourself:<p>• Will your children go to private ($$$$) or public schools?<p>• Will your partner’s employer pay for tax preparation and for how long? Finding international tax people, let alone competent ones, in the USA is extremely difficult &amp; $$$$. Do not underestimate how Byzantine&#x2F;inane&#x2F;amoral the US tax system is.<p>• How are you handling international banking &amp; investments? (Goes with the tax part above)<p>• How are you handling private pension contributions? (Goes with the tax part above; *warning*: different governments may not recognize foreign pensions and instead treat them as taxable investment accounts…. Tread *very* carefully here.)<p>• How are public social taxes handled between DE &amp; the USA? (e.g., US $$$ into Social Security is credited as DE €€€? Or just time credits to qualify for a DE pubic pension? Where will you retire, the USA or DE?)<p>• Are there any social taxes that need to still be paid in DE while you are in the USA in order to use healthcare, education, etc.? (for your return, in case your partner looses her job, kids want to go to DE university, etc.)<p>• How will you establish credit? Remember, you are starting with no credit history so large purchases (car, etc.) will be difficult. Especially in the USA where credit is the norm.<p>• Will you rent or buy a home? Can you qualify for a mortgage and if so, when?<p>• How can you obtain a US drivers license? (e.g., Can your DE one be instantly swapped for a NJ one? Or will you have to take a drivers test? If so, does that require you pay for drivers school? Does your new license have restrictions on car types that you can drive and for how long?)<p>• Is your partner’s company paying for shipping of your furniture, etc.? Or will you buy everything new? What about electronics that need to be replaced? (e.g., vacuum cleaners, kettles, etc.)<p>• What is the best visa for you &amp; your partner? *warning*: Do some research or pay for independent legal counsel here. Remember that the types of visas that your partner’s company will suggest&#x2F;initially sponsor <i>may be in their best interests and not yours.</i> Can you qualify for a visa independent of your spouse? (i.e., so that your whole family isn’t 100% dependent on your partner being at her current employer.) Are there any preferential visas available to you via DE&#x2F;USA treaties? (E.g., E1&#x2F;E2, etc.) This area can be <i>really</i> expensive to fix afterwards, so make sure you get what’s best for you.<p>• Is your partner’s company paying for “home visits”? (e.g., return flights to DE 2x a year, etc.) If so, for how long?<p>The above is just a starting point, but I’m sure the “global mobility industry” has others to be found.

Why not contract remotely from The States, keeping your client base in the EU?

All I can say is, spend a great amount of time reading and watching videos about the wonderful state of New Jersey and its natural landmark the Nee Jersey Turnpike.

Why? Berlin is much nicer :-)

You should do it.<p>Princeton NJ is a beautiful part of the state, and close to the university.<p>Not sure where you will live, but Nassau Street has a quaint charm. There&#x27;s plenty to do, and you are a 90 minute train ride to Manhattan.<p>Don&#x27;t let the comments discourage you. People are just blowing off steam from the roe v wade ruling.

Attempting a concise rebuttal to doom-forecasting about USA’s future:<p>Which decade since 1900 was worse than the one before it? Did the daily newspapers predict the most impactful events of the decade (positive or negative)?<p>I share most of your current outrage and concerns, but history shows a clear net positive trend

America is the best country in the world economically and culturally. Most folk who spout anti-American rhetoric get their news from biased sources and have never been here any length of time. Sure it has its problems like everywhere else but this country is the greatest and I could never imagine living anywhere else. So I’d recommend trying it.<p>I say all that as a European.